


Your children are animals!

by naturegirlrocks



Category: avengers MCU
Genre: Baby Animals, Gen, Loki's Kids, M/M, No Loki on screen, Uncle!Thor, daddy!Tony, pre-relationship?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 08:40:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7794991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naturegirlrocks/pseuds/naturegirlrocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony finds an adorable puppy in his workshop. Where did it come from?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your children are animals!

**Author's Note:**

> I know I'm so behind on the conclusion of my massive trilogy, (so sorry) but it has been summer and I'm on medication. It will be done soon, but in the mean time take this 'little' cute gem that may it may not get a sequel if the muse strikes.

Tony was sitting at his favourite work table in the Avengers Tower workshop. It was the table where he had his best magnifying glass, his most intricate tools, and the shortest distance to the coffee maker. It was also the closest one to the miniature bar, but even Tony knew that intricate micro-technology and alcohol didn't go well together. 

The work table was also the furthest away from the bots' loading stations. Not that Tony minded the light humming from the chargers, but strangely enough, Dum-E had developed a know be of snore whenever he was docked. Tony should really look into that, even though he found it kind of cute. Usually he kept the all three bots in Malibu, but he had flown Dum-E over to New York to lend JARVIS an extra hand, or claw as the case may be, with some projects.

U and Butterfingers were still in the, now rebuilt and even more modern and Art Deco, beach house in Malibu. Tony was fairly certain that the two robots are not conducting any raves without him. The last time they had done that the toaster had looked mysteriously shagged out, and Butterfingers had needed a serious oil-change. After that unsupervised parties had been banned. 

Tony was currently busy constructing a spare emergency arc-reactor. Not that the one in his chest was malfunctioning or was going to run out of juice any time soon, but he liked to be prepared. Never a scout, always a scout, and all that nonsense. Anyway, people had tried to steal the reactor before, some even succeeding...

He bit his lower lip to distract himself from the memories of the traitorous man he had once made his surrogate father and concentrated on joining a tricky circuit instead. He felt a bit nostalgic as he welded the tiny pieces together. 

When he leaned back, happy with a work well done, and to crack a kink out of his back, he was surprised by a sudden feeling in the air. If Spider Man was there Tony would have made a joke about spider senses tingling, Peter always glared at him when he did that, not that they hung out that often. Or maybe this was a Star Wars joke, Tony mused, like a disturbance in the Force. 

Dum-E made a sound like a combined wake-up-snore, surprise, and curiosity. 

"Sir," said JARVIS calmly. "Protocol fifteen-eleven is breached."

"'Fifteen-Eleven'?" Tony frowned as he quickly went through the different protocols in his head. "An animal attack? Here? Are you sure?" 

"Positive," responded the computer. "It's behind you."

Tony swirled around on his swirly chair. There was nothing there. 

He looked around, trying to see if there was a bloodthirsty lion or cougar hiding under one of the other tables, or perhaps a crazed armoured monkey behind one of his suits. Nothing. Maybe it was a bird that had gotten sucked into the ventilation systems, it had happened to Clint a few times before. Perhaps it was a rat, this was New York after all. Or a lost butterfly, though insects where not classified as animal-attacks, not even bees.

A small whining sound made Tony look down at the floor. 

Tony gasped at the sight of the cutest little puppy he had ever seen in his life, and he had sometimes spent several whole days surfing on YouTube. 

The puppy looked like a Husky, perhaps with a little Akita mixed in, it was had to tell since it couldn't be more than a six to eight weeks old. It was white with at lest three nuances of grey, a patch of black fur covered the area around its right eye that was the clearest blue in colour. The left eye, surrounded by white fur as the rest of the face, was brown amber. The nose was pink and the perturbing tongue even pinker.

"Hello?" said Tony not knowing what else to say. 

The puppy yapped at him, wagged its tail, and promptly turned to lie on its back showing an adorable hairless pink belly. Tony noted that the puppy was male. 

"Where did you come from?" 

He slipped down to his knees on the floor and started to rub the puppy's belly. It felt like pure silk and smelled even better. The puppy's amazingly different eyes closed as the tiny animal relished in the touch, its pink tongue licking its snout in pure bliss. 

Tony recalled a story that Rodney had told him once. It was about a friend of his whose mother didn't like cats, but then the friend had showed the cat that he wanted to his five-year-old little sister and the mother had had to give in. Was this something like that? Did one of his live in teammates want a dog and sent the puppy in to charm Tony before asking to keep it? 

It was probably Steve. Tony knew for sure that the Super Soldier loved the ASPCA and sometimes even helped the New York division with rescuing kittens out of trees, beating down puppy-mills, and other heroic stuff like that. He sighed as the puppy playfully nibbled his fingers. 

"Well, come on then, boy," Tony lifted the puppy off the floor and rose to his feet. "Let's go find your daddy and tell him we are going to keep you. And that this kind of emotional extortion is totally beneath him."

When Tony reached the elevator Dum-E was there as well.

"Do you want to come too?" asked Tony with a laugh. "Jealous? Scared that the tiny puppy is cuter than you?"

Dum-E beeped, sounding forlorn, hanging his claw-head in defeat. Tony just laughed again and stepped aside to make room beside him for the bot. The puppy looked very intrigued and leaned over in Tony's arms to smell Dum-E. The robot beeped again, the puppy yapped. 

"No fighting, you two," smiled Tony. "You are both pretty." 

He reached the commune floor, the one just under the penthouse, within thirty seconds. As was usual during downtime all the Avengers seemed to be there, including Coulson who more or less had moved in after recovering from his near death experience. The former agent seemed to be in a deep conversation with Clint over a mission report. 

Natasha and Bruce were playing chess, while Steve and Thor were each reading a copy of a historical magazine that Tony had given Steve a subscription of for his birthday a few months back. Tony noted with a smirk that Thor's magazine had a Viking on the cover while Steve's had Eisenhower. 

Nobody looked at him as he entered. Even Dum-E wasn't even given a raised eyebrow. All of them continued as nothing had happened. It was strange, since the one who had left the puppy in the workshop must be very tense over Tony's reaction to it.

"Fine," said Tony placing the puppy ceremoniously on Steve's open magazine. "We'll keep it. But you have to housetrain it, and if it chews on any of my cords I will spank you and not in the good way."

Steve stared down at the animal as if it was a tiny V2-rocket. The puppy stared back, looking a bit suspicious at the new human he had landed on. Tony shifted his stance a little, not Steve then, maybe Clint? 

"Excuse me?" Steve cleared his throat. "Why do you have a puppy?"

"Puppy?" Clint's voice rose from the corner. "You have a puppy? Can I see?"

The archer had already jumped his way forward to Steve's seat. When he caught sight of the animal he immediately started to coo and turn to a bowl of mush. It really was the cutest thing ever, even Tony had to admit to that. Also it was clear that he puppy wasn't Clint's either, because that display would have melted Tony's heart more than just the puppy alone had done. 

He looked around his friends who had gathered around them to find the culprit, but all of them seemed as surprised and enamoured with the ball of fluff on Steve's lap as Steve himself. 

"So..." Tony shifted again. "It wasn't any of you guys?"

"Where did it come from?" asked Bruce, ever the sensible one. 

"I found it on the floor of my workshop," said Tony. "JARVIS said it was an animal-attack. I thought one of you had put him there to charm me into keeping a pet."

His friends looked at each other and shook their heads. Then they all turned to the puppy who was busy licking Clint's fingers. 

"Do you think it's a bomb?" asked Natasha, ever the optimistic one. 

"Who puts a bomb in a puppy?" huffed Clint. "Wait, don't tell me. I don't want to know."

Bruce lifted the puppy from Steve's lap and started to examine it. The puppy thought it was a game and looked very disappointed when Bruce handed him over to Thor who seemed to itch to hold the tiny thing by the way his fingers moved. Bruce looked at Tony. 

"There are no scars, no visible or tactile abnormalities. In an animal this young it would be impossible to hide anything, unless it's a really small microchip or..." he hesitated "...magic."

All stiffened and watched the puppy squirm in Thor's big hands. Thor's eyes had narrowed slightly, he wasn't in the least trained in any magic other than with Mjölner, but both his parents and adoptive brother were so he must have picked up a few things, nonetheless. 

"There is something..." said Thor slowly. "I can't tell what it is, but it feels familiar somehow."

"All right," Tony jumped to action. "JARVIS, warm up the M.R.I., let's scan this bitch."

"The animal is clearly male, a Man of Iron," noted Thor, holding up the puppy so Tony could see the evidence for himself. "I would have thought that obvious."

"Good to know," Tony rolled his eyes and took the puppy gently from Thor. "You got an A+ in biology, didn't you?"

Everyone, except Dum-E who now couldn't fit I the elevator and was left behind, followed Tony down to the medical floor. The robot was probably going to busy himself with cleaning, or at least Tony hoped so.

There were always at least two nurses in residence around the clock at the Tower for emergencies. Usually they just took care of minor day-to-day injuries, did paperwork, or assisted Bruce if he had any medical research going on. 

The two nurses of the day were both female and were having coffee by the kitchenette. Both were new, at least new enough that Tony hadn't seen them before. Usually Tony liked flirting with any and all newcomers but now he only gave them a boss-like smile and nod before heading to the M.R.I.-room with the puppy. 

"Is it safe to give him something so he doesn't move around so much?" he asked Bruce with a worried frown. "He's just a little baby after all."

"Already on it," Bruce was reading something on his Stark-Pad. "We still have that modified sleeping-gas we used for crowd control at that school. We can give him a very small dosage.”

He hurried back out to get the gas, Steve followed to help carry since the canister was quite big. 

"That was a fun day," Natasha smiled in remembrance. "Clint got beaten up by three angry mothers." 

Clint scowled. 

"They didn't really get my point that it was much better that I anaesthetise their brats and hide them safely away rather than them running around being trampled to death by a huge-ass mechanical spider."

"Fun day," mused Nat again. 

"Can you say anything more about the magic?" Tony asked Thor. 

He had grown strangely fond of the puppy in the short time and had already asked JARVIS to send out for puppy-formula, food, and some toys. It would be a real shame is they had to do something... not good. 

Thor stroked the puppy with a thumb almost as large as its head. Thor chuckled as the little creature grabbed hold of him with tiny paws and sharp teeth. Tony instantly started thinking of names. Something cool that fitted to the beast's awesome eyes. What was a cool name anyway? Buster? Chewbacca? Tony?

"I can still feel something," Thor hummed. "But he has such energy in himself being so young that it's blocking me out."

Tony smiled at this and looked up as Bruce and Steve returned with the gas-canister and the two nurses. Bruce indicated to the shorter one of them. 

"Marie did part of her training in an emergency maternity ward," he said. "She says she can handle the anaesthetic. And Claire's going to take some blood for testing."

"Fine," Tony bent down and nuzzled the puppy who licked the sides of his mouth. "You be a good boy now. Daddy's just going to go look at your insides on a computer screen."

"Daddy?" teased Clint as he, Coulson, and Natasha followed Tony to the monitoring room. 

"Don't get too attached," warned Natasha. "We might have to put it down."

"You are quite a little ray of sunshine, aren't you?" said Tony turning on the monitors.

"Don't listen to her," said Clint. "She has four cats up on her floor."

"Nine," sighed Nat with a defeated smile. "Svetlana had her kittens last night."

"And you didn't tell me?" Clint squawked. 

Tony just sighed. He didn't care that Natasha somehow managed to sneak cats into the tower without asking him, it was just something she would do. He looked through the glass to the scanner. Steve was carrying the canister outside so not to disturb the powerful magnet. The nurses left with the blood. Bruce and Thor were talking. 

Tony turned on the microphone between the two rooms. 

"Ready to go, guys?" 

"Thor has recognised the magic," Bruce frowned. 

"Loki," said Thor. "I sensed it immediately when the animal feel asleep."

Tony exchanged looks with Clint and Natasha. Coulson stood quiet with his arms folded, probably debating if he should contact Fury or not. 

"Better get in here," Tony turned the microphone off. 

As soon as Steve, Thor, and Bruce had joined them and closed the door Tony started the machine. The puppy had been placed on his back, the head lobbed to the side. 

They watched the holo-screen as the multi-coloured images grew forward, shaping the body of the small dog in a 3D-image. Tony guessed that it was only he and Bruce that even mildly understanding what they showed. And that was only because the two of them had designed the upgrades on the thing themselves. 

"JARVIS?" Tony watched as the last tip of the tail being scanned. 

"I concur with Dr. Banner," said the A.I. calmly. "There are no anomalies. The magic signature is comparable to that of Loki Laufeyson." 

"So it's a normal dog?" 

"As far as I can't match the breed to any in my database. Based on bone structure and teeth it is of the mammal order of Canis Lupus."

"Wolf or dog?" 

"Inconclusive. DNA is still being analysed."

"Is it an Asgardian breed?" Coulson spoke up for the first time. "And if so, do they grow into enormous killing monsters when adult?"

"I do not know of this breed," Thor shook his head. "But, as I heard many times on Midgard, dogs become what their masters make of them."

That did it for Tony. He had a puppy and he was certainly not going to waste it, even if it had something to do with Loki. That was an issue for later. 

He hurriedly turned off the machines and jogged back out to the adjoining room. The tiny animal was still unconscious, but breathed normally and the heart beat was regular. He cradled the tiny limp body carefully in his arms. 

"I'm going to call him Tesla," he announced. "That's a cool name."

"Aren't we at all concerned that Loki brought Tony a puppy?" asked Steve. 

Again they all turned to Thor. 

”My brother is still in prison, so I don’t know how he managed to do this. Do not ask me of the inner workings of his mind or magic. He could outsmart me before the age of ten. Though a gift like this could very well count as... wooing. If it isn't trickery, which I would hold more likely when the receiver is Tony."

"I'll ignore that remark," Tony hugged his new puppy to his chest. "I'm a very woo-able, thank you.”

”Yeah,” said Clint with a smirk. ”By madmen in prisons.”

_____

It was in the middle of the night when the fully recuperated Tesla had demanded to be let out to do his little puppy business on the roof and Dum-E was chasing the animal around with a pooper-scooper, when Tony really began considering the thought that Loki could actually be wooing him. 

But there had been no note, no sign, no anything with the dog. It had only been Thor's offhand theory, but it had stuck. 

An other theory had been that Loki was going to kill Tesla just as Tony has begun fallibility in love with the dog. That idea was scraped because not even Loki had that kind of cruelty. He was a crazy bag of cats, but he wasn't a heartless one. Even Natasha had to agree with that, and she had met a few of those in her days. 

Tony shuddered a bit in the cold night. He had wrapped his bedcovers around himself before venturing out on the roof, but his feet were still bare. Though on the bright side, Tesla had actually woken him to go outside and not just left a poopie on the floor for him to step in in the morning. That had to count for something. 

They returned inside after a few minutes of running around, and Tony nearly facing a heart attack when Tesla had been sniffing close to the edge of the roof. Dum-E had lifted the puppy by the scruff of the neck and delivered him back to Tony who hugged the dog a bit too hard after that. 

"Send someone to dog-proof that fence on the roof," he said to JARVIS as he walked inside. "That thing is fucking dangerous."

"Yes, sir."

Feeling a bit calmer, Tony opted for the bar to calm himself even more. 

By morning he was very calm indeed but was woken up by Tesla licking the inside of his nose. Tony splurted and pushed the dog away. His head felt like it was going to explode, his stomach was curling in on itself, and there was a thumping sound in his ears. 

No, the thumping wasn't in his head. It was coming from a black boot impatiently tapping the floor next to his face. Tony grunted a little as he turned to his back and looked up at Clint standing over him with Tesla in his arms. 

"You don't deserve a puppy," said the archer accusingly. 

"Puppy!" begged Tony with a pout holding his arms up towards the fluffy creature. 

"Not until you showered," Clint huffed and walked away towards the kitchen. "He's just a baby, you'll scar him for life."

Tony breathed hard, still feeling like he had been caught up in a fistfight with at least five Doom-bots without his suit. A shower sounded like a really good idea right now, if he could get off the floor. 

"What was the happy occasion this time?" Bruce sat down beside him on the floor with a sigh and a cup of coffee. 

"I'm going to redecorate the roof," said Tony eyeing the coffee. "Make it more safe for small animals."

"Good times," nodded Bruce helping Tony to sit up and placed the warm cup in his hands. "Look, I'm not going to lecture you because you have already heard it all before, and also I'm saving my good speech for your next monthly intervention..."

"Appreciated," Tony gulped some of the delicious bitter beverage, he knew he had made a good choice in making friends with Bruce. 

"So I got the blood..." Bruce was interrupted by a shrill scream coming from the elevator. 

"STARK!" 

Tony protected his sore head under his free hand from the onslaught of a very angry and very wet Natasha Romanoff. The fact that she was only wearing a tight swimming costume made the experience even more frightening. She could have done him so much damage if she hadn't been held back by Steve Rogers. 

Steve was also sporting a swimming costume, the kind with mid-thigh pants and short-sleeved shirt. Despite its modest old-time look it still left very little to the imagination. 

Both Natasha and Steve liked to do a few laps in the tower pool each morning, but they usually changed before coming back up for breakfast. 

"What the fuck did you do?" screamed the very agitated female assassin. 

Clint was coming back out from the kitchen, drawn by the noise. He was still holding Tesla, feeding the puppy with a small rubber-bottle of puppy-formula. Coulson and Thor came over from the dining area, Tony hadn't even known they had been on this floor. 

"I don't know," whimpered Tony while trying unsuccessfully to get Bruce to protect him. "What did I do?"

"The swimming pool is full of saltwater," said Steve with hesitation. 

"That's what you're focusing on?" Natasha spat in anger. "I'm talking about the huge-ass snake on the bottom of the pool!"

"I was getting to that..." murmured Steve. 

"Snake?" asked Bruce his eyes widened. 

Both Nat and Steve nodded at the same time. They actually looked quite pale, neither of them were particularly comfortable around reptiles.

Tony struggled through his hangover-haze and managed, with a of bit support from Bruce, to walk over to the large flat screen. JARVIS helpfully brought up the security footage from the pool without being asked. The other Avengers gathered round the screen as well. 

"Holy Harry Potter, Batman," said Clint, apparently not noticing that Tesla was now chewing on his fingers. 

The snake on the bottom of the pool was about the size of those Boa Constrictors you see on the Discovery Channel chomping down on baby water-buffaloes. Tony swallowed a bit of bile rising in his throat. 

"I couldn't have been that drunk..." he whispered. "JARVIS?"

"My readings indicate that both the water change and the appearance of the snake occurred in the same fashion that puppy Tesla did. There is also a nominal reading that can be attributed to magic."

"Loki?" Tony frowned. "Why would he give me a giant snake?"

"Actually..." Bruce took up his mobile and held it up to one of the sensors in the room. "JARVIS, big screen. I was going to talk to you about this... We got the results on the blood tests we took on the dog." 

The pool footage on the TV was moved to the top right corner of the screen, and some graphs of results came in focus. 

"What are we looking at?" asked Coulson who had walked up unnoticed behind them. 

"This is Tesla's blood," Bruce pointed with his mobile. "And this is the samples SHEILD took of Loki after his capture. There is no doubt that Loki is Tesla's father."

The silence almost lasted ten seconds. 

"Okay," said Tony. "That's just freaky."

"This beast can not be Fenrir!" Thor took the puppy from Clint and held him up to his face for closer inspection, the puppy giving a small burp. "Fenrir is over one and a half of your Midgard millennia old, he is five times the size of me, his fur is like silver spikes! Fenrir's smallest fangs are larger than this creature!"

Tesla licked Thor's nose, looking totally adorable.

"Correction," said Tony. "That's really freaky."

Thor handed Tesla to Tony. The puppy seemed very happy to be back and curled himself close to the arc reactor. 

"Look," Bruce took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "I know this is messed up, but I made the tests over trice. And look at this..." Another image flashed up on the screen, an enlarged section of the M.R.I. scan. "Do you see the scar on his pallet? According to the Norse myths Fenrir was silenced and prevented from swallowing the world by a sword being speared though his snout."

"It's impossible..." whispered Thor, his skin pale as a sheet. 

"So..." Natasha glanced at the smaller footage of the snake in the pool. "Does Loki have any other children?"

"He has four that are still alive," said Coulson. "At least according to the Norse myths I've read. Fenrir, the wolf; Jörgundmandir, the serpent; Sleipner, the steed; and Hela, the ruler of the realm of Death.”

Thor nodded slowly, but still looked a bit shocked.

"Alright," breathed Tony, feeling a bit panicky. "Are we expecting a baby-pony and a mini-demon to drop in on us as well? 'Cause I don't think I'm insured for that shit." 

"We need to take the snake for testing," said Bruce putting his glasses back on. "Clint, how are your fishing-skills?"

"I can hit it with a sedative arrow if that is what you are asking," shrugged Clint. "I'll go and get one."

He and Bruce left the room, Nat and Steve following them to go get changed. Coulson and Thor were still looking closer at the snake on the screen, JARVIS enlarged the image to full size again. Tony was just hugging Tesla, Fenrir, what the fuck. This was getting a bit intense. 

"Why can't I just get a puppy from a hot crazy person and be done with it?" Tony sighed. 

Tony cleared his throat in slight embarrassment. The realisation that Loki was hot wasn't new, it was just the first time he had said it out loud. Nobody else seemed to have noticed though. Tesla was wiggling in his arms. 

"Again," said Thor with a definite frown that ignored Tony completely. "This can not be Jörgundmandir. He is large enough to encircle the whole realm of Midgård and bite the end of his own tail. This serpent looks close to newborn."

"Newborn?" Tony stared at the huge-ass snake, though he was fairly sure snakes didn't have asses.

"That thing looks like it could swallow a cow," noted Coulson. 

Tony groaned. He really didn't want to throw a cow into his swimming pool at feeding time. 

He put the puppy down on the floor, the little beast scampered away in search of something to chew apart, hopefully not one of the Ethernet cords or any of JARVIS' sensors. Tony took a deep cleansing breath. It didn't work well for his nerves but it made his thoughts fall a bit more in line.

There was a giant fucking snake in his pool.

"Sir," JARVIS poked on his attention. "Dr. Banner and Agent Barton would like to call the New York Zoo to ask them about sedatives."

Tony looked at the screen. Bruce and Clint were down at the pool. Bruce was carefully holding a measuring tool of some sort into the water while Clint had a small crossbow aimed at the snake for protection. 

The reptile itself lay on the bottom of the pool and didn't even seem to bother to acknowledge either of them. It was looking at the underwater-camera with a large yellow eye though. Tony was slightly mesmerised. 

"Sure," Tony shrugged. "If that really is Loki's kid then we better not harm it. I'm rather fond of my tower in an upstanding position."

"Yes, sir. And Director Fury is on the line for you."

Coulson immediately held up his empty hands and shook his head to show he hadn't called Fury. Tony believed him since part of the deal of letting Agent live in the tower with them was no reporting to Fury without permission. 

"Nick!" Tony put on a carefree voice and motioned through a series of hand gestures behind his back to Thor and Coulson that they should go down to the pool and that he would join them when he was finished with the call. "To what do I owe this honour on this perfectly normal morning?"

"To the fact that you are supposed to meet with me and the Minister of Defence in less than ten minutes?" growled Fury through the speaker. "Get your ironclad ass over here now, Stark!"

"Do I have to? He just wants a photo-op for his next campaign after all."

"I know," agreed Fury in a bitter tone. "But he has agreed to do a major public coverup for us and if he wants a picture shaking hands with Iron Man in exchange he will god damn get one. You agreed to it."

"Was I drunk?"

"Why do you think we needed a major public coverup?"

"Oh. Yeah. Right. That. Ten minutes."

"Seven," said Fury before disconnecting. 

Tony took three minutes to chase down Tesla (it was still a much cooler name than Fenrir), and then an extra minute to bury his nose in soft puppy belly. On the other hand, the elevator down to the pool only took ten seconds. 

The whole team was assembled by the poolside, including Jane Foster who was hiding behind Thor. The small woman seemed to be both fascinated and terrified by the snake at the same time. 

"Steve!" grinned Tony at the supersoldier standing by a pile of fluffy towels. "This is your lucky day! How would you like to put on your tight blue spandex trousers and shake hands with the actual Minister Of Defence under Fury's single watchful eye?"

"Tony..." Steve grumbled. 

"Please Stevie!" Tony made puppy eyes. "I got a giant extraterrestrial snake in my swimming pool!" He held up Tesla in front of his face to add on some genuine puppy eyes in the mix. "Pweeese?"

"I..." Steve looked like he was ready to give a reluctant lecture. 

There was a sudden gasp from Jane, the only one of them that had still been looking at the snake. Tony felt something wet and hard around his leg. He looked down to see the snake coming out of the water and climbing (can snakes climb?) up his calf. 

The head of the thing was the size of a American football, a black forked tongue was flickering between the thin reptile lips. Nobody really reacted until the strong muscles squeezed around Tony's thigh. That was when Tesla barked.

"It seems to amphibious," noted Bruce. 

"Can you shoot it?" whispered Tony carefully, not wanting to provoke the monster snake while had it's head was so close to his precious genitals. 

"I haven't got the right stuff," said Clint, though still aiming the small arrow with tiny pink feathers towards the snake. "Nat was just leaving to get it. This sedative is for alligators, also it’s the wrong dosage, the guy at the zoo said only to use it in an emergency."

"Isn't this an emergency?" Tony shuddered as the snake continued its climb(?) over his backside and around his waist in under his shirt. "I call this a fucking emergency!" 

"Let's see what it does first," Bruce stepped forward, took the dog from Tony, and then stepped back again. 

"Yeah, thanks," huffed Tony. 

The giant wet snake under his shirt paused momentarily with its head by the arc reactor. The last piece of the tail wasn't out of the water yet. Tony took a small breath as the reptile continued upwards, up through the back neckline of his shirt and further forward to his face. They were now at eye level, the black parted tongue flickered near Tony’s nose.

"H-hi," stammered Tony, then glancing to Bruce. "Shall I smile? Are snakes threatened by smiles?"

"Monkeys are," said Clint helpfully.

"Don't show it your teeth," said Jane who was still hiding behind Thor. 

"It's a giant space snake," Tony struggled not to move his lips. "Not a fucking gorilla." 

"It's not from space," noted Coulson. "It's the Midgard-snake."

"I still don't believe that tiny creature is Jörmangundir," said Thor. "What I remember of him his scales where green, purple and gold."

Tony gave him a glare, why didn't Thor try on the 'tiny creature’ for himself? The thing had to weigh at least fifty kilos, and its full weight wasn't even on him yet. 

"Talk calmly to it," suggested Bruce. "Snakes likes vibrations."

"Hi... Jor...ma... Eh... George." 

Seemingly agreeing with the name, or the vibrations in Tony's voice, the snake continued wrapping itself around Tony until it was situated like a combined corset-scarf-garter around him. The scales were a bit wet but they were actually also soft and comfortingly fleshy. The head settled to rest over the arc reactor. 

"Okay..." Tony looked down. "This is a bit if a new kind of fashion statement for me. Little help?"

The others changed glances and Tony knew he was screwed. 

"I would love to help," said Nat. "But I need to get to the zoo."

"I'll drive!" said Clint, handing the arrow and crossbow to Tony who stared morosely at the pink feathers. 

"Sorry, I have a Minister to meet, apparently," Steve smiled. 

"I need to so some more tests," Bruce adjusted his glasses. 

"I think this little guy needs a walk," Coulson pointed to Tesla. 

"I must to visit Asgard," Thor said thoughtfully. 

"I would love to help," Jane looked sad. "But snakes really creep me out."

Tony was left alone by the pool, a large snake warped around him and an alligator-sedative in his hand. 

"Traitors," he murmured. "Who needs them, George? Eh? What do you say? Just you and me?"

George hissed deeply, making every primeval instinct in Tony want to curl up in a little ball. His modern, and highly advanced, brain held him upright though, and he stiffly began to move towards the elevator with the rest of the snake's tail trailing behind him on the floor. Well, at lest he didn't have to smooze with the Minister, and that was something. 

//////\\\\\\\\\\\

Tony was getting used to the weight wrapped around him an hour later when the delivery men from the pet store arrived. He had ordered a five thousand litre water tank to be put up in the penthouse. The swimming pool wasn't really the best place for George since it needed to be used for other things, like swimming. 

He had bonded quite well with the snake during the hour, but was still apprehensive about the upcoming feeding time. The pet store had offered to sell him some frozen mice or rats when he explained part of his predicament, but the thought of feeding the little fury animals to George made Tony's stomach cringe. Fish would do just fine, George was supposed to be a sea-snake after all, according to Wikipedia.

When the other Avengers returned Tony was busy designing a system of pumps that would bring some of the water from the pool up to the new tank, later on it could work as an oxidation pump. It was only a temporary solution since the tank wouldn't allow George to really stretch out, and also anything heavier would endanger the penthouse's structural maximum weight tolerance. 

"Stark," Tony looked up as Fury entered with Steve in tow. "You can't always send Rogers when you don't want to do something."

"He's a big boy," Tony shrugged. "He can say no if he wants to."

"Is this the new pet?" Fury narrowed his eye. "The one that prevented you from the meeting?"

"Yes," Tony patted a wad of scaled muscle on his shoulder. "He's a bit clingy." 

"Rogers said it was a gift from an admirer." Fury looked him over. "What kind of crazy ass people are you flirting with anyway?"

Steve hid his uneasiness and red cheeks by suddenly becoming very interested by the two slightly starstruck deliverymen working on the tank. Tony gave him an amused look. 

"Oh, just the normal snake-giving kind of person."

Fury seemed to want to ask something more but was interrupted by the elevator doors opening and Natasha, Bruce, Coulson, and Tesla arriving. The puppy immediately ran over to Tony and rubbed against his leg, very much like a cat. He barked briefly at George before going over to smell Fury's boots. 

"Sir," Coulson greeted Fury who gave a nod back. "Tony, there's a delivery for you in the lobby."

"There is?" Tony frowned, glancing to the half-finished tank. "But I haven't ordered anything else..."

He looked between Natasha, who was passively holding a small orange bag of sedatives in her hand, and Bruce, who was looking very amused. Tony didn't feel good about that look. 

"JARVIS, lobby cam." 

Tony's worst fears were indeed confirmed when the hologram showed an image of a grinning Clint Barton waiving at the camera and holding a small horse on a leash. 

"Fuck," said Tony. "And I was just getting used to the snake."

//////////////

After successfully sedating George, peeling him off Tony, and placing him intricately curled up on the MRI, Tony could finally turn his attention to the horse. They had brought the colt up to the medical floor as well, even though it would never fit in any of the machines without any serious leg bending. 

They had estimated the horse to be about three weeks old. Thankfully, it could drink goat-milk so nobody on Tony’s payroll had to go milk a horse. 

Tony left Bruce and Coulson to do the snake scanning and joined the others in the larger admittance room. Natasha was holding Tesla while Clint and Steve looked over the colt. 

Now that Thor was away, the only one among them who had even the slightly knowledge about horses was Clint, and that was only because he had as a child been forced to clean the stables in the traveling circus he grew up in. Which basically just meant that he more or less knew what was supposed to go into the animal and what would later come out of it. 

Steve had patiently explained to them that even if horses were more common in the nineteen-forties, he had always been a city boy, and in the military his duties had never involved horses, not even for transport. 

The colt was light brown in colour all over except for the hairs on the hoof of the right front leg that were white like a single sock. It was clearly a baby but tall enough to trot over to Tony and lean his head against his chest and the reactor. Tony patted the long neck lightly. 

"He's got four legs," he said. ”If he’s the god-pony, isn’t he supposed to have eight?"

Natasha shrugged. 

"According to Thor the wolf and the snake aren't quite looking like themselves either. Especially since all three of them seem to have returned back to childhood."

"Maybe Asgard has the Fountain of Youth," said Tony, now patting the colt's snout. "It's not entirely impossible. They live in Magic Land after all, and they stay awfully young for a long time."

"No," Steve shook his head. "Thor explained that while they by nature have very long lifespans, they keep their health by eating a special fruit. The fruit slows down their physical ageing, but it doesn't make them any younger."

"Loki could have found the Fountain of Youth someplace else then."

"What I'm worried about..." said Clint leaning back on a table, arms crossed. "...is what's going to happen when these babies grow up."

Tony blinked. 

"Okay, we got to get hold of Loki."

"How are we going to do that?" asked Steve. ”He’s in prison, on another planet. All we can do is wait for Thor to come back."

"Tony could do it," Natasha smiled conspiringly. "Loki has obviously chosen him as the other daddy..."

"I'm not the other daddy!"

Nat held out Tesla towards him, the puppy immediately began reaching for him. The colt was still nuzzling his side. Tony took the puppy with a sigh and laid an arm around the colt's neck.

"Fine..." he muttered. "I am the other daddy. But I still don't know how to contact Loki, we never actually talked after he threw me out of the window. Though that was mostly because he was gaged later on."

"Don't forget your third son," said Bruce coming out from the M.R.I. control room. "He's beginning to wake up."

He and Coulson were carrying George between them, the snake resting its head on Coulson's shoulder. Steve hurried forward to help carry the part that was dragging on the floor. Tony couldn't help but smile. 

"How is he?" 

"Except for him having both lungs and gils," Bruce shrugged. "I'm not a vet and I'm certainly not a herpetologist, but what I can see he looks like all the pictures of snakes I can find online. We need to wait for the blood to find out more."

"What about Nero here?" Tony scratched behind the colt's ear. 

"Nero?"

"Sleipner, Nero. It's a good nickname if you think about it."

Clint gave half a laugh. Bruce shook his head in amusement.

"I can easily modify the X-ray machine for him, there is no need to put him under for that, just a calming sedative. But if we want to do an M.R.I. we need to go to Houston where they have one specially made for horses. Even if he is small, we can't bend his legs enough to fit in ours."

"Start with the X-ray," nodded Tony. 

The modifications to the machine would take about an hour. Steve and Coulson stayed with Bruce on the medical floor while the others headed back up to the penthouse. Tony was a little worried about his carpets as they brought Nero with them, but bared it with only a slight trepidation. 

Tony and Clint carried the half-sedated George between them, the long snake was even heavier while relaxed. Nat held on to Tesla and Nero. 

Well upstairs Tony, with help of Clint, dragged his least expensive carpet into the living room, it had been in the kitchen so It had already seen some spillage. It was one of those very few moments that Tony regretted being so high-tech, some ordinary newspapers wouldn't be half bad right about now. 

"Hey, big boy," Tony took a firm but still gentle hold of Nero's soft muzzle. "If you feel the need to shit do it on that. If this fucking mess works out, or if your daddy doesn't come back to get you, I'll build you your very own stable with a flat screen and a very own x-box you can use with your hooves. Okay? But you need to shit on this carpet, and not anywhere else. Do you hear me?”

Nero shook his head and neighed, Tony really hoped it meant yes. 

"Mummy, actually," said Natasha from the sofa where she parked herself with a Stark-pad over her folded legs. "It says here that Loki was the one who gave birth to Sleipner."

"Right..." Tony was feeling some fatigue roll over him. "JARVIS, give me a screen with all the test results we got so far."

The largest of the windows facing the city outside crystallised over and several holographic pictures began moving over it. There were a couple of different colourful images of a dog and a snake. The blood tests on George and Nero were still pending. Clint came up next to him to look as well. 

"You know, that hoof x-box sounded really cool."

"I know," grinned Tony. "Maybe something like a combination between a Wii and one of those dance-mat-controllers."

"Awesome," agreed Clint. 

They had soon abandoned the medical results for technical schematics and game interfaces. Tony enjoyed Clint like this, it was one of their few common grounds. The guy couldn't tell a PC from a Mac from a Stark-book but he damn well knew about movements and the operation of games. 

Nat just shook her head and buried herself in Norse mythology. 

Tesla, George, and Nero were all sleeping in a very strange pile on the floor when Bruce, Steve, and Coulson entered the Penthouse some time later. Jane and Fury were also there, following them inside. Jane made a cooing sound over the animal pile, even if she still was a bit apprehensive over the snake. She took a picture with her phone. Fury looked pissed off. 

"Stark," he huffed. "Explain this!"

Tony, who was busy measuring energy spikes while Clint danced around on an electronic mat, barely raised his head to look at Fury. He spared a longer glance at Jane who now was holding some sort of radiation-detector over the kids. She seemed very excited. 

"I have recently become the father of three healthy critters," he said. "I would offer you a cigar but I have a no-smoking policy inside the tower. We really should have a baby-shower. Can you register at pet stores?"

"Stark," Fury warned. 

"The x-ray is ready," interrupted Bruce. "But it seems a shame to wake them."

"Let them sleep," agreed Steve moving towards the kitchen. "I'll go make us something to eat."

"That reminds me," Tony looked up. "JARVIS, send out for some fresh fish."

"Yes, sir."

Clint had finished his sequence and was now looking at the results on the screen. Tony doubted that the archer understood much of the figures, though he noticed to his amusement that JARVIS had set up a small scoreboard in the corner of the screen. Fury seemed to be loosing patience. 

"Are these animals really Loki's children?"

"As I said," Bruce stepped forward. "We only got the confirmed blood work on the puppy so far, but it's very likely that the other two are as well."

"Are they dangerous?"

"George might scare the shit out of a few people," Tony shrugged. "But so far they are just babies."

"And when they grow up?"

"We'll see. Hopefully we will have gotten hold of Loki by then, and some better answers."

"Fine," Fury looked over the sleeping brood. "But I want them under round-a-clock surveillance and daily progress reports from Agent Coulson. Also, I'm sending over agents from the zoology department to have a look at them."

"SHEILD has a zoology department?" Tony laughed, but then shrugged again. "Fine, but not even a suggestion of cutting them open, or your scientists be the ones on the table, and I'll let Hulk hold the scalpel."

Bruce didn’t seem to oppose to this. Fury nodded. 

"I wouldn't expect anything less from you, Stark."

"Good that we see eye to eyes on this."

"Fuck off," Fury cave a quarter of a smirk before heading for the elevator. "I want a report in my desk by morning."

Tony watched him leave and returned to the interface. 

//////////

About an hour later Tesla was awake and running around the Penthouse like a ferret on a sugar-rush. At the moment he was having a tug of war with Steve over a kitchen towel. George had settled comfortably in his new tank but was keeping a keen eye on all of them through the glass. Nero was down in medical with Bruce and Clint being x-rayed. 

"And this small spike," said Jane pointing to a graph projected on the window screen. "Is the same radiation as the Bifrost, but it's clear that none of them have travelled the bridge to get here."

"Well," Tony looked over the graph. "We guessed that George was already on Earth, but how did the other ones get here?"

"Thor said that Loki knows several secret paths between the realms," Jane did some notes in her book. "I think the radiation is just a bi-product. It's harmless by the way, so don't worry."

The fish arrived at the same time as the results of the blood tests popped up on Tony's screen. Steve went down to the lobby to collect the food while Tony and Natasha looked over the results. 

"Well," said Tony, pointing out the relevant graphs to Nat. "Loki is defiantly parent to the two others as well. How did your reading go? Any possibility of some more critters coming our way?"

"As Phil said..." she bent down to lift Tesla who was trying to bite her ankle for attention "...there's three more kids mentioned in the myths, but those myths are over a thousand years old so there could well be more kids that are not on record."

"What about the three others?"

"Two of them, also wolves, killed each other in a fight. The third, that Phil also mentioned, is Hel. She's humanoid. But half woman, half corpse."

"Lovely," Tony frowned. "JARVIS? Any half-zombie babies crawling around the tower?"

"No, sir."

Tony felt relived; baby-animals he could handle fine, but put anything like a human baby in his arms and he would most certainly panic. 

When Steve returned they decided to go up on the roof to let Tesla relive himself. Tony brought George as well, the snake clung to him like a second skin. The reptile seemed worried about the hight but was easily calmed when given food. Tesla was quite fond of the fish as well, but needed the bones removed and the meat mashed to a fine pulp mixed with formula before eating it. 

Tony's hands smelled horrible after that, but he didn't care. It was actually quite cool seeing George swallowing down whole fish, he had always wondered at snakes' ability to disengage their lower jaw. Natasha seemed equally intrigued. 

"Don't you ever think you can use him to get rid of your victims when he gets older."

"I thought nothing of the sort," the assassin gave him a too innocent smile. 

They were soon joined by Bruce, Clint and Nero. The colt hurried over to Tony, not bothering at all about being on the top of a skyscraper. George seemed a bit irritated over this. Nero was given bottle of goat milk and some soft oats, and was good enough to relive himself away from any eating surface or important equipment. 

Bruce showed the x-rays on his Stark-pad. 

"Only thing abnormal about him are these extra joints at the shoulders and pelvic. I'm no expert, but the myth about the eight legs might be true.

"Have they been removed?" asked Steve with a disapproving frown. 

"I have to ask the zoologists when they arrive," Bruce shook his head. "But I think the extra legs just never developed before birth."

"So..." Tony took a breath to adjust his mind to the new possibility. "They are not only rejuvenated, they are actually reborn?"

"I didn't think of it that way..." confessed Bruce. "But I guess... maybe?"

They stayed outside since the weather was nice. Clint played with the puppy until it fell asleep in his lap. Steve cooed with Nero while Jane took more readings. Tony sat back with Nat and Bruce, letting George wrap around him. He could feel the bulk of fish inside the snake. 

As the evening came closer they ordered pizza. Coulson joined them when the boxes arrived. 

"The zoologists will be here in the morning," he said as he settled in next to Nat. 

Tony frowned when George slithered down from him and over to Bruce. He had gotten used to the closeness and weight of the snake. 

"It's because I have a higher body temperature," explained Bruce with a slightly uncomfortable smile as the snake curled around him. "Snakes can't produce their own body beat."

Steve got up and got a couple of blankets for them to wrap up in. He placed one over Nero's back. Tony made plans to install one of those red heat-lights on the roof. 

"Fuck," he said, rubbing his face. "I'm actually making plans to keep them."

"Aren't you?" asked Clint, rubbing behind Tesla's ears. "I thought it was pretty obvious that you wanted to."

"I do," Tony sighed. "But I'm not their real father. Am I even supposed to look at them as children, or are they real animals? And shouldn't I at least speak to Loki first? Does he have a plan? And why me? All I ever did to him was insult him and offer him a drink before he threw me out of a window."

"Perhaps that was his idea of foreplay," Natasha shrugged, she was holding a big tabby cat that she apparently had produced out of nowhere. 

"So what?" Bruce laughed. "Drink, foreplay, and then 'Here, have three my three reborn animal children'? That's a very strange way to build a relationship." 

"You think he wants a relationship?" Tony didn't know how to feel about that. 

No one had a good answer for that, and the party sporadically broke up for the evening. 

Bruce put George in the tank where the snake curled into a satisfied underwater ball. Steve and Tony pushed some couches together in a rectangle to make a stall for Nero. The young horse lay down on one of the seats and neighed contently. Tesla jumped up to his side and snuggled to his brother's side. 

Tony was still pondering the relationship question when he took the elevator down to his workshop. Loki was handsome and had an obvious sense of humour, but he was also a crazy ancient alien wizard. 

 

//////////////////

 

When Tony awoke on his lab-couch the next morning he heard the familiar sound of thunder. He had stayed up late tinkering with the horse-keyboard. That idea would either make or brake him. Well, expect for that he already was made and he could never brake even if he tried. 

"Sir," JARVIS said from above. "Mr. Odinson has arrived with a guest."

"Loki?"

"No, it is a lady."

"Can still be Loki," muttered Tony as he stumbled to the elevator. "They better have coffee up there."

"Captain Rogers has prepared a pot, sir." 

Tony exited the elevator and was immediately accosted by a happy puppy throwing himself against his legs. Tony laughed and picked up Tesla who started to lick his face. Then there was the soft nuzzle in his side that Nero greeted him, and the already familiar feeling of a snake slithering up his leg. Tony let it happen and thought that the might get used to it. 

"They like you Master Stark," said the voice of a young eloquent woman. "And I can see you like them as well."

The lady standing before him was at the same time the most beautiful and the most repugnant woman Tony had ever seen. The left side of her face, body and dress would make any Hollywood starlet seem plain in comparison, while the right side would fit in more than perfect in one of the horror movies that those starlets would have to take part in to reach fame. 

Tony forced himself to meet both her eyes, the left one emerald green and the right one completely red without pupil or iris. She smiled, both kind and blood-dripping mad. 

"Hel, I presume," Tony boldly took her right hand and kissed it, it was clammy and slightly gory. "You are much older than I expected."

"I am," Hel nodded, seemingly both surprised and pleased over the greeting. "Please sit down, Master Stark. I know that Jörgandmund can get heavy."

"He's all right," said Tony but sitting down nonetheless. "To what do I owe this visit? Do you want some fatherly advice?"

Hel gave him an amused look. Steve placed a cup of coffee before Tony who now noticed that all the other Avengers, with Phil and Jane, were also in the kitchen. He also noticed that all except Thor and Nat had placed themselves on Hel's good side. Tony met her face on. 

"My father..." She smiled fondly on both sides "...offered the same chance for me as for my brothers, to escape through rebirth. I refused. Unlike them I am not in any kind of disgraceful servitude, nor am I a lowly prisoner. I am the ruler of my own realm, and I have no desire to return to childhood. It wasn't easy growing up like this..."

"I'm sorry," Tony felt sad for her.

"It is of no matter anymore because I have now found my perfect place in existence, and I am more than pleased with it. Anyway, as my brothers needed a womb, I provided."

There was a moment of silence as this sank in. 

"So these are your children?" interrupted Bruce. 

"No, these are my brothers, Master Banner. I'm the ruler of the Land of the Dead, there are not a shortage of volunteers."

The humans looked between themselves, but let it go. There was obviously some kind of magical other-worldly biology, and ethics, going on here. 

"Fine," Tony shifted. "You want them back?"

"Not at all," she shook her head. "They are yours now, Master Stark. Neither I nor my father will set any claim for them. Treat them as you would any intelligent members of their species."

So Tesla should rather be trained as a dog for search and rescue than be sent off to kindergarten, good to know. Tony had been a bit confused over that. 

"That's just fucked up," He suddenly got angry at Loki. "He's just basically abandoning them with some stranger? They might be animals but they are still his kids!"

Tesla whimpered in his arms and Tony made some comforting hushing noises. Nero and George seemed disturbed by the outrage but were still both calm. 

"He's not abandoning them, Master Stark," Hel's voice was suddenly much sterner. "Also, you are hardly a stranger. Sending them to you was an act of great love on my father's side."

"'Great love'?" repeated Coulson, calling for attention by holding up his hand in question. "I'm sorry, milady, but you have to explain this."

"My father is still in prison awaiting his final sentence," she said more calmly. 

Her face was so sad that even her bad side evoked sympathy. Thor reached out and took her bony dry hand in his. She smiled gratefully at her uncle. 

”My father may be sentenced to death for his crimes against your planet, Master Stark.” 

Tony swallowed. It had been one thing to believe that Loki had sent him his children as a kind of elaborate wooing, or maybe even as a step in an evil plan of placing dangerous creatures on Earth, but the thought of Loki fearing for his life and seeing Tony as the only one he could trust his children with was a whole other thing entirely. He hugged Tesla and George closer to him. Hel gave him a kind smile when she noticed the gesture.

"He wouldn't have chosen you if he didn't trust you," she smiled. "You must have done a great impression on him."

"With what?" Clint shook his head. "The constant teasing, the deadly stunts, or just his smug face?"

"If it were just that..." Nat gave him an elbow in the rib "...then he would just as well have chosen you."

Their short exchange gave Tony time to collect himself. 

"I've changed their names," he blinked suddenly realising. "I didn't know who they were at first. I..."

"It doesn't matter," Hel kindly placed her gruesome hand on Tony's arm. "It'll give them a fresh start."

”Is there…” Tony hesitated, looking around the room at his friends and the young animals that now seemed to belong to him. ”Is there anything we can do to help Loki? I mean…” he adjusted George’s sleeping weight over his shoulders. ”It doesn’t seem right… somehow… I know what he did, it was really bad, but… I don’t know.”

It was a strange question to ask, and it wasn't really his to ask or decide, but that was not enough to discourage someone like Tony Stark. 

"As people of Earth..." began Thor carefully, stopped, and rephrased himself. "That is to say, some of the victims of Loki's crime, and as the ones who defeated him, the Avengers have a say in the proceedings. With me and Hel on your side we can petition that his sentence... could be that his guardianship be handed over to you, all of you."

"That would be... alright," Tony looked hesitantly to his friends. "I think."

”I agree,” Steve stepped forward. ”From what we’ve heard from Thor and Clint, Loki wasn’t entirely to blame in that whole mess with the Chitauri.”

”Not entirely,” shrugged Clint. ”But he is very much to blame nonetheless.” 

”Come on,” Nat pointed at Nero’s long face and turned it towards Clint. ”Just look at those eyes and tell him that you won’t help his mummy out. Also, just imagine that we would have the opportunity to call Loki ’mummy’.”

"That would be funny..." the archer agreed with a nod. 

Tony looked to Bruce who gave a shrug. 

"I'm not fond of the death sentence in any form," said the scientist. "Also, it wouldn't fell good to keep the kids knowing that we hadn't at least tried to help their father."

"Mummy," reminded Clint. 

"Alright," nodded Tony taking a deep breath. "We'll agree to petition for Loki's guardianship. Though I have sneaking suspicion that he planned for this to happen all along."

Hel smiled, half her face sweet and half her face chilling.

"If so, Master Stark, I'm not privy to those plans. I'm only responsible for giving life to my brothers."

Tony smiled back. 

"So he wasn't flirting with me?" he felt strangely disappointed at the thought. "Not that asking someone to have one's children is flirting..."

He could hear both Clint and Steve giggle.

"Again Master Stark," Hel put her different hands together on her lap. "I don't know. But he must feel something for you if he chose to trust you with his greatest treasures."

Nero gave a adorable neigh and stated nibbling on Tony's sleeve, making it all wet with horse dribble. Tony suddenly felt very touched and needed to blink several times to prevent himself from tearing up. He covered it quite well by burying his face in the animal's soft mane. 

They spent the rest of the morning showing Hel around the tower. She was most impressed by the view from the roof, George's large tank, and Thor's room because it was so clean and tidy. 

After she left, in the company of Thor, Tony finally sat down to have a drink and a minor nervous breakdown. Though the drink was rudely taken away from him halfway through. 

"Shouldn't you be preparing a room for Loki?" Steve emptied the glass in the sink despite Tony's wordless objections. "I don't know about you but I would feel much better if I knew he was under good security." 

"Isn't that a strange welcome." Tony sighed and rubbed his face. "'Hi, Lokes, thanks for the animal-children, and the implied courting, enjoy your new prison'?"

"We are petitioning to be his guardians," Natasha came up to them, George was very elegantly wrapped around her shoulders and hips. "We should show Asgard that we are able to take care of him."

"Fine," Tony sighed and then looked her over. "Are you okay? Isn't he heavy?"

"He weighs a ton," she admitted.

"Wait until he's able to circle the Earth," Tony grinned and held out his arms. "Come to Daddy."

Steve helped Nat to lift George's midsection over to Tony's shoulders. He was indeed heavy.

"Maybe I could construct a snake carrying robot? A cart of some kind? Snake Cart!"

"Sounds awesome," said Clint who was trying to teach Nero to use the dance mat with the help of some pieces of fruit. 

"Tony," sighed Steve. "Loki's room."

"Yeah, yeah..." Tony smiled. 

Maybe he should put some chains in there just for fun. And some photos of himself holding the kids of course...


End file.
